- Apr 26, 2016
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- Sydney
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This is a lengthy post that I didn't want to clog other threads up with, plus it doesn't really pertain to anything about our club except the midfield. So as Paul Roos would say, HERE IT IS!!
I've gone over our complete CBAs from this year to try and find out what often went wrong and who, or what, is to blame. I initially used the AFL app's template for what a "centre clearance" was, but I found they didn't really tell the whole story, as according to AFL or Champion Data or whoever is responsible for recording stats, a handball out of one pack straight into another counts as a "clearance". I believe this is often why we find ourselves looking at games where to the naked eye we've been thumped in clearance work only to read the stats sheet and discover we won that stat on any particular day.
So I came up with my own sort of system, focusing only on centre bounces where the ball was successfully moved from stoppage situation to general play situation. Using this, I gave each centre bounce combination a W (we won the clearance), an L (we lost the clearance) or a D (we drew, as in neither team won an immediate clearance and the ball was thrown up again.) I then distributed points a la the premiership ladder - 1 point for a clearance win, 0.5 points for a drawn stoppage, and no points for a clearance loss. From there it was simply about how many points they 'scored' from their CBAs, to determine their final success rate.
To find out which players, pairings and combinations worked and which ones didn't, I broke them all down into three levels: individuals, duos, and trios.
Most successful individuals based on CPPCBA (Caesar points per CBA):
1. Angus Sheldrick - 51.67%
2. Chad Warner - 46.13%
3. Luke Parker - 45.24%
4. James Rowbottom - 44.92%
5. Tom Papley - 43.59%
6. Errol Gulden - 41.74%
7. Isaac Heeney - 38.24%
8. Callum Mills - 37.81%
So great news for the Angus Sheldrick Appreciation Society that is so rampant on this board, right? Well, not exactly... Sheldrick's points are hard to gauge because he only had CBAs in five games, and one of them happened to be the West Coast game, in which the Swans overall won 22(!) centre clearances, so it distorts his overall effectiveness. So I dug a little deeper and found that without the West Coast game, Sheldrick goes from 1st at 51.67% down to 8th at 37.8%. (I repeated this exercise with all of the other mids and none of their percentages changed more either way than 2%.)
I'll also note that even in those centre clearances that we did win in those five games, Sheldrick himself was only equal third in terms of winning the clearances, with five over that period, well behind Rowbottom (11) and Parker (10).
Most successful duos based on CPPCBA (Caesar points per CBA):
1. Chad Warner & Luke Parker - 49.49%
2. James Rowbottom & Luke Parker - 49.09%
3. Chad Warner & James Rowbottom - 47.06%
4. James Rowbottom & Tom Papley - 46.74%
5. Luke Parker & Tom Papley - 45.07%
6. Errol Gulden & James Rowbottom - 44.9%
7. Callum Mills & Luke Parker - 44.64%
8. Chad Warner & Tom Papley - 42.72%
9. Errol Gulden & Luke Parker - 42.21%
10. James Rowbottom & Callum Mills - 28.92%
Quite obviously there are three names that feature prominently at the top here - that being Parker, Rowbottom & Warner (this will be reinforced later on.)
Perhaps most strikingly is the Mills & Rowbottom number. These two were instrumental in our grand final run last year. They were in our top 3 players in the last few months of 2022 by almost every measure imaginable - Skilton Medal votes, AFLCA coaches votes, player ratings points, even POTY votes on this very board. Our midfield was hardly a triumph last year, but if we want a reason for our midfield going backwards this year, we need look no further than these two becoming our least effective centre bounce pairing.
Out of interest I also wondered how the two fan favourites - Gulden & Warner - faired when paired up at centre bounces, and the result was... underwhelming. At 42.47% they'd just sneak into 9th place if they'd featured together enough this year.
And, for anyone in the Angus Sheldrick Appreciation Society wondering who their Chosen One worked best with, the answer is a resounding Tom Papley, who he was paired up with seven times for seven centre clearance wins (yes, that's a strike rate of 100%, for the mathematically challenged. I'm not judging.) Next-best for Sheldrick were Gulden (60%) and Rowbottom (58.4%).
Most successful combinations based on CPPCBA (Caesar points per CBA):
(There were obviously a shit load of combinations throughout the year, including random ones like McInerney, Wicks, Stephens & Roberts all popping in for literally less than five CBAs each all year. So below are only the ten most-used combinations we went with this year, ranked from best to worst.)
1. Chad Warner, James Rowbottom & Luke Parker (59.23%)
2. Callum Mills, Chad Warner & Luke Parker (59.09%)
3. James Rowbottom, Luke Parker & Tom Papley (55.13%)
4. Chad Warner, Errol Gulden & Luke Parker (53.13%)
5. Chad Warner, James Rowbottom & Tom Papley (51.92%)
-----
6. Errol Gulden, James Rowbottom & Luke Parker (46.36%)
7. Callum Mills, Errol Gulden & Luke Parker (46.15%)
8. Chad Warner, Luke Parker & Tom Papley (46.08%)
9. Callum Mills, James Rowbottom & Luke Parker (42.68%)
10. Errol Gulden, Luke Parker & Tom Papley (39.66%)
First of all, it says a lot about how much we used Luke Parker this year that he features in nine of our ten most-used centre bounce combinations. (20% more than our next mid.)
Second, looks like I have some egg on my face. Three of my gripes all year were with each of Warner, Rowbottom & Parker in the midfield. Warner because I thought he was better suited to the outside, Rowbottom because I thought he was too defensive, and Parker because... well I won't go into that again. Evidently they were getting it done. If not to the level that say a Petracca/Oliver/Viney can get it done, still more so than the rest we've got.
It's also interesting that that trio were number one last year as well, though with a much higher percentage of 72.7%.
Some other less-used combinations that I thought had interesting results:
- Isaac Heeney, James Rowbottom & Luke Parker was our most successful combination of the year, going at 91.67%. Interestingly this trio was also our most successful combination in last year's grand final, being the only ones to produce a strike rate above 50% all game.
- Our three youngest mids (of our main rotation, so excluding Sheldrick, Roberts etc.) in Rowbottom, Warner & Gulden had a positive strike rate of 52.63%.
- Last year's top 3 in the B&F in Mills, Warner & Rowbottom went from a strike rate of 57.1% last year to 40% this year, which would've had them second-lowest if they were featured more. Once again, when you compare to last year it really isn't hard to see why the midfield got worse this season.
- Justin McInerney also appeared in four centre bounces this year for four losses.
Most successful first-touch midfielders based on CPPCBA (Caesar points per CBA):
All of the above was hard to interpret because there were a lot of centre bounces where players didn't even touch the ball but still got points for being at a centre bounce that proved successful. So I wanted to look a bit more into who was actually contributing most to these successful centre bounces, meaning who had hands on ball the most at these centre bounces.
Using handball receives wasn't a good indicator as a lot of the time the ball went to wingmen or running half backs pushing up, which rendered the starting mids redundant. So I looked at the mids getting first touch on the ball, be it winning a ground ball or roving a ruck's taps.
This is based on % of an individual's CBAs where they won first touch that initiated a successful clearance. It does NOT include first touches that failed to lead to a successful clearance.
1. James Rowbottom (31.9%)
2. Errol Gulden (26.72%)
3. Tom Papley (25.84%)
4. Luke Parker (23%)
5. Chad Warner (18.77%)
6. Isaac Heeney (18.58%)
7. Angus Sheldrick (18.5%)
8. Callum Mills (14.3%)
These both did and didn't surprise me. On the one hand I've always felt like Rowbottom was very good at reading ruck taps and knowing where the ball was going, but it also felt like too often he wasn't even going for the ball. Gulden doing so well in this area also suggests you don't need to be a big-bodied bull to be an effective first-touch midfielder.
At the other end of the spectrum... Mills... brother... I've defended you all year and said you needed to be in the midfield more, and this is how you repay me? In his defence, he was in heavily defensive roles in the second half of the year and similarly to Rowbottom, looked more preoccupied putting body on an opponent than going for the ball a lot. But even then, he was doing this last year and still effectively feeding the ball out. I don't want this post to be a Mills-bashing thing, because I love him and he's a great player. It's just hard not to feel that his lack of impact this year translated to a lack of impact from our midfield overall.
My thoughts:
Have tried to be objective doing this, and all of the above is just data, not my personal belief (for example I am still a massive believer in what the Mills & Rowbottom partnership can be despite the evidence suggesting they stunk it up as a duo this year.)
It's also always going to be a bit murky. All of the above doesn't include centre bounces where free kicks were paid for ruck infringements, or where the ruckman won the ball and cleared it out himself, as in those cases the midfielders played no part in it. But there are other areas it can still be murky. A brilliant play can be undone by one great opposition smother that turns the ball over, or a few of our mids could've done everything right and then one of the others gives away a silly free. So there's a lot of variables that don't make it plain black and white. But I hope all of the above does help illuminate things somewhat.
The below are just my thoughts:
For all the talk of how badly we need a ruck, watching these centre bounces back one after the other really clarifies the things our midfielders do poorly, and I'm not sure a ruckman will make much of a difference until we fix those things our midfielders do:
One area where I think a ruckman could make a big difference is how we position and set up. Our mids run back behind the ball almost all the time, as if they're expecting the clearance loss and are getting ready to push back to defence. It means that when we DO win the clearance, we rarely have the players ahead of the ball, meaning so many of our clearances are won out the back of the pack. Going backwards to go forwards means you're not always gaining maximum territory, and a lot of our clearances land around about the 50-60m half forward mark, which is how defences that push up high like Geelong's have killed us again and again. Perhaps a ruck acquisition such as Grundy will give our mids the confidence to hold their ground and maybe even move into some attacking positions, so we can get more clearances out the front of packs.
I think this will be for the coaches to sort out. As for the players...
Watching the clearances all back one after the other makes it so much easier to notice each player's game and particularly the things they get wrong at centre bounces. Each have one particularly glaring flaw that seemed to cause them grief repeatedly.
Gulden - Tries to get onto his preferred kicking foot when the time or space to do so isn't there.
Mills - Frustratingly it's simple skill errors for him. Handballs missing targets, fumbling ground balls etc.
Papley - Tries to be too cute with little taps and stuff when simply taking possession is needed.
Parker - Just can't get the isolation on his opponents that the others can, though this is hardly groundbreaking.
Rowbottom - Too defensive too often, though again, hardly groundbreaking.
Warner - Tries to do too much which gets himself under more pressure.
And finally, Parker...
If the Parker-Rowbottom-Warner combination has been our strongest over the past two seasons, and two of those are on the right side of 25 while the other is on the wrong side of 30, then it becomes really easy to see where Sheldrick fits into the equation, potentially as soon as next year. He reminds me of a young Parker the way he plays and as we phase one out, we can phase the other in.
Thank you for listening to my TED talk.
I've gone over our complete CBAs from this year to try and find out what often went wrong and who, or what, is to blame. I initially used the AFL app's template for what a "centre clearance" was, but I found they didn't really tell the whole story, as according to AFL or Champion Data or whoever is responsible for recording stats, a handball out of one pack straight into another counts as a "clearance". I believe this is often why we find ourselves looking at games where to the naked eye we've been thumped in clearance work only to read the stats sheet and discover we won that stat on any particular day.
So I came up with my own sort of system, focusing only on centre bounces where the ball was successfully moved from stoppage situation to general play situation. Using this, I gave each centre bounce combination a W (we won the clearance), an L (we lost the clearance) or a D (we drew, as in neither team won an immediate clearance and the ball was thrown up again.) I then distributed points a la the premiership ladder - 1 point for a clearance win, 0.5 points for a drawn stoppage, and no points for a clearance loss. From there it was simply about how many points they 'scored' from their CBAs, to determine their final success rate.
To find out which players, pairings and combinations worked and which ones didn't, I broke them all down into three levels: individuals, duos, and trios.
Most successful individuals based on CPPCBA (Caesar points per CBA):
1. Angus Sheldrick - 51.67%
2. Chad Warner - 46.13%
3. Luke Parker - 45.24%
4. James Rowbottom - 44.92%
5. Tom Papley - 43.59%
6. Errol Gulden - 41.74%
7. Isaac Heeney - 38.24%
8. Callum Mills - 37.81%
So great news for the Angus Sheldrick Appreciation Society that is so rampant on this board, right? Well, not exactly... Sheldrick's points are hard to gauge because he only had CBAs in five games, and one of them happened to be the West Coast game, in which the Swans overall won 22(!) centre clearances, so it distorts his overall effectiveness. So I dug a little deeper and found that without the West Coast game, Sheldrick goes from 1st at 51.67% down to 8th at 37.8%. (I repeated this exercise with all of the other mids and none of their percentages changed more either way than 2%.)
I'll also note that even in those centre clearances that we did win in those five games, Sheldrick himself was only equal third in terms of winning the clearances, with five over that period, well behind Rowbottom (11) and Parker (10).
Most successful duos based on CPPCBA (Caesar points per CBA):
1. Chad Warner & Luke Parker - 49.49%
2. James Rowbottom & Luke Parker - 49.09%
3. Chad Warner & James Rowbottom - 47.06%
4. James Rowbottom & Tom Papley - 46.74%
5. Luke Parker & Tom Papley - 45.07%
6. Errol Gulden & James Rowbottom - 44.9%
7. Callum Mills & Luke Parker - 44.64%
8. Chad Warner & Tom Papley - 42.72%
9. Errol Gulden & Luke Parker - 42.21%
10. James Rowbottom & Callum Mills - 28.92%
Quite obviously there are three names that feature prominently at the top here - that being Parker, Rowbottom & Warner (this will be reinforced later on.)
Perhaps most strikingly is the Mills & Rowbottom number. These two were instrumental in our grand final run last year. They were in our top 3 players in the last few months of 2022 by almost every measure imaginable - Skilton Medal votes, AFLCA coaches votes, player ratings points, even POTY votes on this very board. Our midfield was hardly a triumph last year, but if we want a reason for our midfield going backwards this year, we need look no further than these two becoming our least effective centre bounce pairing.
Out of interest I also wondered how the two fan favourites - Gulden & Warner - faired when paired up at centre bounces, and the result was... underwhelming. At 42.47% they'd just sneak into 9th place if they'd featured together enough this year.
And, for anyone in the Angus Sheldrick Appreciation Society wondering who their Chosen One worked best with, the answer is a resounding Tom Papley, who he was paired up with seven times for seven centre clearance wins (yes, that's a strike rate of 100%, for the mathematically challenged. I'm not judging.) Next-best for Sheldrick were Gulden (60%) and Rowbottom (58.4%).
Most successful combinations based on CPPCBA (Caesar points per CBA):
(There were obviously a shit load of combinations throughout the year, including random ones like McInerney, Wicks, Stephens & Roberts all popping in for literally less than five CBAs each all year. So below are only the ten most-used combinations we went with this year, ranked from best to worst.)
1. Chad Warner, James Rowbottom & Luke Parker (59.23%)
2. Callum Mills, Chad Warner & Luke Parker (59.09%)
3. James Rowbottom, Luke Parker & Tom Papley (55.13%)
4. Chad Warner, Errol Gulden & Luke Parker (53.13%)
5. Chad Warner, James Rowbottom & Tom Papley (51.92%)
-----
6. Errol Gulden, James Rowbottom & Luke Parker (46.36%)
7. Callum Mills, Errol Gulden & Luke Parker (46.15%)
8. Chad Warner, Luke Parker & Tom Papley (46.08%)
9. Callum Mills, James Rowbottom & Luke Parker (42.68%)
10. Errol Gulden, Luke Parker & Tom Papley (39.66%)
First of all, it says a lot about how much we used Luke Parker this year that he features in nine of our ten most-used centre bounce combinations. (20% more than our next mid.)
Second, looks like I have some egg on my face. Three of my gripes all year were with each of Warner, Rowbottom & Parker in the midfield. Warner because I thought he was better suited to the outside, Rowbottom because I thought he was too defensive, and Parker because... well I won't go into that again. Evidently they were getting it done. If not to the level that say a Petracca/Oliver/Viney can get it done, still more so than the rest we've got.
It's also interesting that that trio were number one last year as well, though with a much higher percentage of 72.7%.
Some other less-used combinations that I thought had interesting results:
- Isaac Heeney, James Rowbottom & Luke Parker was our most successful combination of the year, going at 91.67%. Interestingly this trio was also our most successful combination in last year's grand final, being the only ones to produce a strike rate above 50% all game.
- Our three youngest mids (of our main rotation, so excluding Sheldrick, Roberts etc.) in Rowbottom, Warner & Gulden had a positive strike rate of 52.63%.
- Last year's top 3 in the B&F in Mills, Warner & Rowbottom went from a strike rate of 57.1% last year to 40% this year, which would've had them second-lowest if they were featured more. Once again, when you compare to last year it really isn't hard to see why the midfield got worse this season.
- Justin McInerney also appeared in four centre bounces this year for four losses.
Most successful first-touch midfielders based on CPPCBA (Caesar points per CBA):
All of the above was hard to interpret because there were a lot of centre bounces where players didn't even touch the ball but still got points for being at a centre bounce that proved successful. So I wanted to look a bit more into who was actually contributing most to these successful centre bounces, meaning who had hands on ball the most at these centre bounces.
Using handball receives wasn't a good indicator as a lot of the time the ball went to wingmen or running half backs pushing up, which rendered the starting mids redundant. So I looked at the mids getting first touch on the ball, be it winning a ground ball or roving a ruck's taps.
This is based on % of an individual's CBAs where they won first touch that initiated a successful clearance. It does NOT include first touches that failed to lead to a successful clearance.
1. James Rowbottom (31.9%)
2. Errol Gulden (26.72%)
3. Tom Papley (25.84%)
4. Luke Parker (23%)
5. Chad Warner (18.77%)
6. Isaac Heeney (18.58%)
7. Angus Sheldrick (18.5%)
8. Callum Mills (14.3%)
These both did and didn't surprise me. On the one hand I've always felt like Rowbottom was very good at reading ruck taps and knowing where the ball was going, but it also felt like too often he wasn't even going for the ball. Gulden doing so well in this area also suggests you don't need to be a big-bodied bull to be an effective first-touch midfielder.
At the other end of the spectrum... Mills... brother... I've defended you all year and said you needed to be in the midfield more, and this is how you repay me? In his defence, he was in heavily defensive roles in the second half of the year and similarly to Rowbottom, looked more preoccupied putting body on an opponent than going for the ball a lot. But even then, he was doing this last year and still effectively feeding the ball out. I don't want this post to be a Mills-bashing thing, because I love him and he's a great player. It's just hard not to feel that his lack of impact this year translated to a lack of impact from our midfield overall.
My thoughts:
Have tried to be objective doing this, and all of the above is just data, not my personal belief (for example I am still a massive believer in what the Mills & Rowbottom partnership can be despite the evidence suggesting they stunk it up as a duo this year.)
It's also always going to be a bit murky. All of the above doesn't include centre bounces where free kicks were paid for ruck infringements, or where the ruckman won the ball and cleared it out himself, as in those cases the midfielders played no part in it. But there are other areas it can still be murky. A brilliant play can be undone by one great opposition smother that turns the ball over, or a few of our mids could've done everything right and then one of the others gives away a silly free. So there's a lot of variables that don't make it plain black and white. But I hope all of the above does help illuminate things somewhat.
The below are just my thoughts:
For all the talk of how badly we need a ruck, watching these centre bounces back one after the other really clarifies the things our midfielders do poorly, and I'm not sure a ruckman will make much of a difference until we fix those things our midfielders do:
- Overrunning the ball (either to win it on the ground or for handball receives)
- Fumble and double-grab a lot of balls (thus putting ourselves under more pressure)
- Turn back into traffic / handball back into traffic (thus allowing ourselves to get tackled)
- Fail to get our arms free in tackles (leading to dead balls and repeat stoppages)
One area where I think a ruckman could make a big difference is how we position and set up. Our mids run back behind the ball almost all the time, as if they're expecting the clearance loss and are getting ready to push back to defence. It means that when we DO win the clearance, we rarely have the players ahead of the ball, meaning so many of our clearances are won out the back of the pack. Going backwards to go forwards means you're not always gaining maximum territory, and a lot of our clearances land around about the 50-60m half forward mark, which is how defences that push up high like Geelong's have killed us again and again. Perhaps a ruck acquisition such as Grundy will give our mids the confidence to hold their ground and maybe even move into some attacking positions, so we can get more clearances out the front of packs.
I think this will be for the coaches to sort out. As for the players...
Watching the clearances all back one after the other makes it so much easier to notice each player's game and particularly the things they get wrong at centre bounces. Each have one particularly glaring flaw that seemed to cause them grief repeatedly.
Gulden - Tries to get onto his preferred kicking foot when the time or space to do so isn't there.
Mills - Frustratingly it's simple skill errors for him. Handballs missing targets, fumbling ground balls etc.
Papley - Tries to be too cute with little taps and stuff when simply taking possession is needed.
Parker - Just can't get the isolation on his opponents that the others can, though this is hardly groundbreaking.
Rowbottom - Too defensive too often, though again, hardly groundbreaking.
Warner - Tries to do too much which gets himself under more pressure.
And finally, Parker...
If the Parker-Rowbottom-Warner combination has been our strongest over the past two seasons, and two of those are on the right side of 25 while the other is on the wrong side of 30, then it becomes really easy to see where Sheldrick fits into the equation, potentially as soon as next year. He reminds me of a young Parker the way he plays and as we phase one out, we can phase the other in.
Thank you for listening to my TED talk.
